Tesla (TSLA) shares are gaining ground as a top- and bottom-line beat coupled with an upbeat outlook on Cybercab and robotaxi growth overshadowed another quarterly revenue decline, reflecting the end of government tax incentives and heightened competition in China and Europe.
In the fourth quarter, Tesla (TSLA) earned an adjusted profit of $0.50 per share, down 17% from a year ago but 5 cents better than expectations and unchanged from the prior quarter. Additionally, adjusted EBITDA was down 4% to $4.15B, while adjusted EBITDA margin dropped 17 basis points to 16.7%. The company’s operating margin was compressed by 50 basis points to 5.7% as an 11% decrease in operating income was matched by a 39% jump in operating expenses.
An 11% decline in total automotive revenue was partially offset by a sizable gain in energy generation and storage (+25%), leading to a 3% drop in revenue for the quarter to an above consensus $24.9B (versus $24.8B estimates).
While automotive sales declined sequentially, gross margin (even when excluding the impact of regulatory credits) improved. The company also noted that it achieved its highest quarterly energy storage deployment, driven by record Megapack deployments.
On robotics, the company said it continued to make progress on its Optimus program with plans to unveil the Gen 3 version of Optimus in the first quarter of this year to include major upgrades from version 2.5.
Tesla (TSLA) began removing the safety monitor from its driverless robotaxis this month on a limited basis, unlocking further expansion of the robotaxi fleet and coverage in the Austin-metro area.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA) were up nearly 3% in the wake of Q4 results, supporting modest gains for peers NIO (NIO), General Motors (GM), Rivian Automotive (RIVN), and Lucid Group (LCID).
ETFs that are leveraged to Tesla’s (TSLA) share price include the Direxion Daily TSLA Bull 2X Shares (TSLL) ETF, GraniteShares 2x Long Tesla Daily ETF (TSLR), ProShares Ultra TSLA ETF (TSLI), and Simplify Volt TSLA Revolution ETF (TESL). Other ETFs with a high weighting of Tesla (TSLA) include Global X Purecap MSCI Consumer Discretionary ETF (GXPD), Grayscale Bitcoin Adopters ETF (BCOR), the Fidelity MSCI Consumer Discretionary Index ETF (XLY), and the Fidelity MSCI Consumer Discretionary Index ETF (FDIS).